Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed more than about one-quarter of the temperature rise observed in the past 60 years, according to a pair of Swiss climate modellers who conclude that most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity.
We cannot say for sure what kind of a home Earth will offer in 2080, but averages made across thousands of model runs help paint a picture of what a 2 degrees Celsius warmer world would look like.
Results indicate that “activity in a certain region is not sufficient to generate consciousness,” neuroscientist Simon van Gaal explains. Instead, he posits, different regions must exchange information before consciousness can arise.
This dilemma is a famous philosophical conundrum that was originally called the “trolley problem.” Now a team from Michigan State University’s psychology department has used virtual-reality technology to test how we respond psychologically and physiologically when faced with this problem.
At least four times in the last few years, astronomers have announced they have found planets orbiting other stars in the sweet spot known as the habitable zone — not too hot, not too cold — where water and thus perhaps life are possible. In short, a so-called Goldilocks planet fit to be inhabited by…
Two diamonds as wide as earring studs have been made to share the spooky quantum state known as entanglement. The feat, performed at room temperature, blurs the divide between the classical and quantum worlds, since typically the quantum link has been made with much smaller particles at low temperatures.
In his new book, The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe, Oxford physicist Frank Close reviews decades’ worth of brain-teasing theories and looks ahead to puzzles yet to be solved.
In the last few weeks major reports by the International Energy Agency and the UN Environment Programme have concluded that we can still meet the UN’s target of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. But climate scientists are far less optimistic. Many say the chance to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius rise…
Dark matter is slowly running out of places to hide. Two new looks at the gamma-ray sky suggest that if the mysterious matter is a particle, it is heavier than 40 gigaelectronvolts, about 44 times the mass of a proton.
When it comes to money, creative people are more likely to cheat to get it than the less-imaginative crowd, a new study suggests. The reason? Creative types may be more skilled at coming up with reasons for their less-than-ethical actions, according to the researchers.